Le Weekend

It has been an ideal weekend in many ways. I spent lots of time with the kiddies. Managed to steal two naps in as many days. Worked in the garden some and visited family for some food and a relaxing social time.

My kids, in case you haven't heard, are the smartest and most loving little things ever made. I get comments like, "I love you, daddy" out of the blue. Sometimes, when I am carrying the boy (now seven), I think back to when he was a toddler and so easy to cuddle and wax nostalgic for those days.

The girl is feisty, smart as whip and tries hard to bend us to her wishes. Showing me a hang nail and saying she needs a Dora band-aid for it, is a favourite excuse to keep herself from going to sleep. Asking to have just one more book read to her and then reneging and asking for "just one more okay, daddy?"

And the wife, in all her permutations is, how you English people say, 'a keeper.'

Le sigh...

Tarah By Lisa

My friend, Lisa, drew this picture of Tarah. Cute. And Tarah loves it.

My Word Cloud

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. Click on the graphic to see it in a larger size.

Great! Just Great!!

• I put up my new blog a few weeks ago and now find that not only did most of my sidebar's content not transfer over, but my new content is not showing up on most peoples' browsers. Thanks a lot Blogspot! I would send them a note to try and figure this out but my last e-mail to them regarding a password issue went unheeded for, well it's been over a year now. I'll just dig around their FAQ and hope for the best. I guess you get what you pay for and in this case, I don't pay a darn thing!

• One of my neigbours is a couple with a teenage daughter. They live near one of the paths that runs through our complex, an enclave actually. Anyways, they are from some Caribbean nation and boy, are they LOUD TALKERS! Which led me to wonder: Is the air thicker down in the Caribbean? Then why all the loud conversations? Shut up already...speak softly, the air is thin in these here parts.
  

• On a less grumpy note: We had to buy a car on account of the fact that the previous 8 year old Toyota Crappola died on us. Something about the timing chain snapping at highway speeds and the pistons (which apparently play a crucial role) damaging they-selves and the all important gasket(s) and the engine went boom. Something like that. So we now have....wait for it....a brand spanking new HONDA FIT! Yea! Hurray!! Huzzah! and all that....especially all that!! I like it, I like it a lot. The car, she's white. I am so all prepared to pimp her up, so I can ride with my ride in the 'hood. My God, I have no idea what I'm saying, but, damn! I will be christening the wee lass...if you have any ideas, I am accepting suggestions.
• Okay, 'nuff said.
  

Found

What you should know about the Cow Killer Ant. (Much nicer picture at this link).
Common Name: Red velvet ant or "cow killer"
Scientific Name: Dasymutilla occidentalis (Linnaeus)
Order: Hymenoptera

First off; Its not an ant, its a wasp.
the females have no wings. (this is one of those)
she lays her eggs in the ground nests of bees. her young eat the bee's young.
The "Red Velvet Ant"(this kind) is the largest of the velvet ants.
it gets 3/4inch long.

Question: You're much braver than i am, getting that close. i know they're wasps, but can they fly?

Answer: Nope, they can't fly but they can run and they are pretty handy with those Chinese throwing stars.